What $470,000 Actually Buys in Fort Washington (Part 22 of 30: The Fort Washington Files)
This is Part 22 of The Fort Washington Files from Donnell Williams Jr. and DMV Prime Properties, a thirty-part series built entirely on what 689 Fort Washington listings actually did in 2026.
Buyers coming into this zip code from Northern Virginia, from inside the District, or from further out in Charles County all ask a version of the same question. What does the middle of this market look like, and what does the middle actually get you.
That question has a real answer here, because Donnell's Bright MLS export covering 689 Fort Washington listings tracked through September 17, 2026 includes 361 closed sales with the bedroom count, the square footage, the year built, the lot size and the structural details attached to every one. Put together, they describe a specific house.
The price first, and why the median is the honest number
The median sale price across those 361 closings was $470,000. The average was $497,372.
That $27,372 gap between the two is not noise. It is the effect of a small number of large sales pulling the average upward, which is exactly why the median is the number a buyer should anchor to. Half of Fort Washington's 2026 closings came in at or below $470,000.
For pace, the median closing took 18 days on market. So the middle of this market is not a market that sits, and a buyer planning to shop leisurely at the median price point should know that going in.
1,716 square feet at $265 a foot
The median above-grade square footage across the 361 closings was 1,716. The median price per square foot, calculated on the actual sale price rather than the list price, was $265.
Two things follow from that. First, 1,716 above-grade feet in this zip code is a real house, not a starter box, and it is one of the reasons Fort Washington keeps drawing buyers priced out of markets across the river. Second, above grade is the operative phrase, and it matters more here than in most places, for reasons the basement numbers make clear below.
Built in 1976
The median year built across all 361 closed sales was 1976. That is the single most useful fact in this post for anyone budgeting beyond the purchase price.
By decade, 30 closings were 1950s homes at a $420,000 median, 78 were 1960s at $459,450, 98 were 1970s at $457,500, 51 were 1980s at $467,620, 60 were 1990s at $507,500 and 17 were 2000s at $675,000. The 1970s bucket is the largest single group in the zip code, and the 1960s and 1970s together account for 176 of the 361 sales.
New construction is the rare exception here, not the norm. Only 9 of the 361 closed sales were new construction, 7 of them in Gallahan Estates, 1 in Spring Ridge and 1 in Tantallon on the Potomac, at a median of $835,235 and a median of 7 days on market, with a range of $710,000 to $1,500,000. A buyer at $470,000 in Fort Washington is buying a resale, and almost certainly a resale with some decades on it.
Four bedrooms, and the full distribution
The median Fort Washington closing had four bedrooms, and it is not close. Of the 361 closed sales, 181 were four-bedroom homes, which is just over half of everything that sold.
Here is the entire bedroom distribution from the export:
- 2 bedrooms: 13 closings
- 3 bedrooms: 83 closings
- 4 bedrooms: 181 closings
- 5 bedrooms: 65 closings
- 6 bedrooms: 17 closings
- 7 bedrooms: 2 closings
Read that list against the square footage figure and the picture sharpens. Fort Washington's median home is a four-bedroom at 1,716 above-grade square feet. Buyers arriving from markets where four bedrooms means 2,400 feet and a two-story foyer are going to be looking at a different kind of floor plan, typically a split level, a rancher or a colonial from the era.
It is also worth noting how thin the small end of this market is. Only 13 two-bedroom homes and 83 three-bedroom homes closed all year, against 265 homes with four bedrooms or more. A buyer who only needs two or three bedrooms has fewer options here than the raw listing count suggests.
0.28 acres, and almost never waterfront
The median lot across the 361 closings was 0.28 acres. Fort Washington residents writing online in August 2026 repeatedly mentioned deep lots and long driveways as one of the things they like about the area, and the lot data is consistent with that.
Waterfront, on the other hand, is vanishingly rare. Only 4 of the 361 closed sales in 2026 were waterfront properties. Anyone shopping this zip code because it sits along the Potomac should understand that actual waterfront inventory is roughly one percent of what trades here in a year.
What is inside the median house
This is where the export gets specific, and where the median Fort Washington home starts to separate itself from the median home in a lot of other price-comparable markets.
Of the 361 closed sales, 300 had a basement and 61 did not. That is more than eight in ten. Given that the square footage figure above is above-grade only, the finished or finishable space in the typical Fort Washington home is meaningfully larger than 1,716 feet in most cases.
Fireplaces showed up on 252 of the closings, against 96 recorded without one. Central air was recorded on 260 closings and absent on 101, which is the number that should get a buyer's attention on a 1976 house. Roughly 28 percent of what sold in Fort Washington in 2026 did not have central air recorded, and that is a real budget item rather than a cosmetic one.
Garages follow the same era. Of the 361 sales, 140 recorded a two-car garage and 68 recorded a single-car garage, with 4 recording three spaces and 1 recording four. Between the garage counts and the 0.28 acre median lot, the driveway-and-garage combination people describe about this area is visible directly in the closed data.
Only one in five had an HOA
This surprises buyers coming from newer subdivisions almost every time. Just 78 of the 361 Fort Washington closings, about 22 percent, carried a homeowners association at all.
Among the ones that did, the median fee was $77.50 a month. That is the median across the properties that had a fee, and individual associations vary, so the figure should be confirmed on any specific property rather than assumed.
Nearly four out of five homes that sold in this zip code in 2026 had no HOA line at all. For a buyer running monthly numbers, that absence is often worth more than a granite countertop.
Where $470,000 actually landed on the map
The median is a zip code figure, and a buyer spends money in a subdivision. Several Fort Washington pockets closed 2026 at medians sitting right on top of the $470,000 line, and they did not look alike.
Tantallon South closed 7 sales at exactly $470,000, on a median 1,836 above-grade square feet, in a median of 8 days, at $281 per square foot. South Fort Foote Village closed 6 at $477,500 on a median 1,907 square feet in 16 days, at $228 per square foot. Oaklawn closed 5 at $475,000 on a median 1,473 square feet in 25 days, at $316 per square foot. Forest Knolls closed 6 at $467,500 on 1,810 square feet in 7 days, at $250 per square foot. Piscataway Estates closed 8 at $462,500 on 1,687 square feet in 20 days, at $298 per square foot.
The same roughly $470,000 bought 1,473 square feet in one pocket and 1,907 in another. That is a swing of more than 400 above-grade square feet at the same price point inside one zip code, and it is the single strongest argument for shopping Fort Washington by subdivision rather than by search filter. These are small samples of five to eight closings each, and all of them are one-year medians.
The line item buyers forget
The median annual property tax across all 361 closings was $5,485, which works out to roughly $457 a month. Part 21 of this series broke that number down by subdivision, where the medians ran from $2,830 in Devon Hills Condo to $9,411 in Tantallon North.
Prince George's County buyers should also expect a front foot benefit charge in the WSSC Water service area, which repays the cost of running water and sewer lines to the lot, is billed annually for a defined term and attaches to the property. Maryland requires that private deferred water and sewer assessments be disclosed on residential transfers, including the amount and the remaining term, and those vary by property.
Donnell is a broker rather than a tax advisor, attorney or lender. Buyers relying on a recorded assessment, a tax credit or a deferred water and sewer charge should confirm the specifics with the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation, WSSC Water or a qualified professional before making a decision.
Putting the median house together
Stack all of it and the picture is clear. The middle of the Fort Washington market in 2026 was a four-bedroom home built around 1976, with 1,716 above-grade square feet on 0.28 acres, a basement, a fireplace, central air and a two-car garage, no HOA, about $5,485 a year in property taxes, sold for $470,000 at $265 a square foot in 18 days.
That is not a composite invented to make a point. Every one of those figures is the median or the majority case across 361 actual closings in one zip code in one year.
What the export cannot tell anyone is condition, which is the variable that separates two houses at the same price on the same street. Central air missing on more than a quarter of closings and a median build year of 1976 together say the same thing: in Fort Washington, the inspection matters as much as the comparables.
See what the median actually looks like in person
Numbers describe a market. Walking three houses at $470,000 in three different Fort Washington subdivisions is what teaches a buyer what their money does here. Donnell Williams Jr. is the broker-owner of DMV Prime Properties at 12815 Old Fort Road in Fort Washington, and he will line up the closed comparables, the recorded tax figure, the HOA status and the systems history on every home a buyer tours in 20744, then tell them plainly where the house sits against these 361 closings. Buyers and anyone relocating into Fort Washington can reach him at 301.818.0313 or donnell@dmvprimerealty.com.
Part 23 of The Fort Washington Files looks at what the 30-year rate reaching 6.95 percent in mid September changed for a buyer shopping this exact market.
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